THE YEAR OF THE HORSES / May 2022 from Tin House
A book Lisa Taddeo calls "heartbreaking but loving," this book visits the year Courtney returned to horseback riding after 30 years away from the sport, and how riding (and horse contact) got her out of an insomnia spiral that was unravelling her marriage and personal relationships. The memoir is braided with the history of women's unique connection to horses, and men's attempt to tame both parties. It's also a pretty funny anti-sports sports memoir about a woman learning polo at nearly 40 years of age.
COSTALEGRE / July 2019 from Tin House
Sinuous and striking, heartbreaking and strange, Costalegre is heavily inspired by the real-life relationship between the heiress Peggy Guggenheim and her daughter, Pegeen. Acclaimed author Courtney Maum triumphs with this wildly imaginative and curiously touching story of a privileged teenager who has everything a girl could wish for except for a mother who loves her back.
BEFORE AND AFTER THE BOOK DEAL / January 2020 from Catapult
Everything you've ever wanted to know about publishing but were too afraid to ask is right here in this funny, candid guide by acclaimed author Courtney Maum. Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book has over 150 contributors from all walks of the industry, including international bestselling authors Anthony Doerr, Roxane Gay, Garth Greenwell, Lisa Ko, R. O. Kwon, Rebecca Makkai, and Ottessa Moshfegh, alongside cult favorites Sarah Gerard, Melissa Febos, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Mira Jacob. Agents, film scouts, film producers, translators, disability and minority activists, and power agents and editors also weigh in, offering advice and sharing intimate anecdotes about even the most taboo topics in the industry. Their wisdom will help aspiring authors find a foothold in the publishing world and navigate the challenges of life before and after publication with sanity and grace.
TOUCH from Penguin Random House
Sloane Jacobsen is the most powerful trend forecaster in the world, and her recent forecasts are unwavering: the world is overpopulated, and having children is an extravagant indulgence.
So it’s no surprise when the tech giant Mammoth hires the woman who predicted “the swipe” to lead their groundbreaking annual conference celebrating the voluntarily childless and their growing reliance on technology. But soon Sloane begins to sense the undeniable signs of a movement against smart devices that will see people embracing compassion, empathy, and “in-personism” again. She’s worried that her predictions are hopelessly out of sync with her employer’s mission (and that her closest personal relationship is with her self-driving car) when her French “neo-sensualist” partner publishes an op-ed on the death of penetrative sex—which instantly goes viral…
I AM HAVING SO MUCH FUN HERE WITHOUT YOU Simon & Schuster
Despite the success of his first solo show in Paris and the support of his brilliant French wife and young daughter, thirty-four-year-old British artist Richard Haddon is too busy mourning the loss of his American mistress to a famous cutlery designer to appreciate his fortune.
But after Richard discovers that a painting he originally made for his wife, Anne -when they were first married and deeply in love-has sold, it shocks him back to reality and he resolves to reinvest wholeheartedly in his family life...just in time for his wife to learn the extent of his affair. Rudderless and remorseful, Richard embarks on a series of misguided attempts to win Anne back while focusing his creative energy on a provocative art piece to prove that he's still the man she once loved.
Skillfully balancing biting wit with a deep emotional undercurrent, debut novelist Courtney Maum has created the perfect portrait of an imperfect family-and a heartfelt exploration of marriage, love, and fidelity.
Winner of The Cupboard's 2012 annual chapbook contest, the author Maud Casey described NOTES FROM MEXICO as a book in 21 chapters that is “wickedly funny but never rests on its cleverness. Instead, the wry sensibility walks a razor’s edge; danger lurks in the taut language, the refreshingly strange observations, the poignantly tippy searching. Like the songwriter Dory Previn, about whom the narrator says, ‘no one gave enough respect,’ this story has an eye for the unsettling, resonant detail and the winning oddness of the world, as well as a lovely, fresh agility when it comes to wrangling with behemoths like marriage and having, or not having, children. Most of all, the pleasure here is in the fleetness of this voice and its deft ability to reside in, and to illuminate, uncertainty, for which its author deserves an enormous amount of respect.”